A Few Short Days

*There was a lot that happened in August. One thing might have happened before the other, I don’t remember the exact order.*

My sister said abuse was escalating. She said she was scared. None of us understood why from what she told us. Things were not making any sense. I told her not to do what her cousin did. She got mad at me for that. She got mad at her husband for everything that he did and said. She ended up over the next several months being mad at most of the people from her past over little things. Who wasn’t she mad at? GCMers. Well, no, she was mad at some of them because they were concerned with her drinking.

Let me say this about her drinking. Her GCM friends got her started. She was getting tipsy. Some GCMers were concerned. She called me and told me they should have come to her if they had a problem and not posted what they posted, etc, etc, etc. I told her it sounded like they were concerned for her. This was something else that was hard to talk to her about. I was kind of getting concerned at this point and I didn’t even know how bad it was getting because I later found out she lied to me about how much she had been drinking.

So what happened next? A lot. We all had so many things to say to my sister. To this day I believe she thinks we were conspiring with each other against her. However, without consulting each other, my family each sent e-mails to her. I was concerned for her spiritual health. My parents were just concerned because she wasn’t acting like herself. My other sister wanted her to know she was concerned about the children. We later compared notes on what each of said since we didn’t know at the time we all were e-mailing her. This was when she was mad at me for saying what I said about our cousin. I then told her to love her enemies. I sent another e-mail to tell her our parents were worried about her. She told me to stop gossiping. All we really said to each other was we were worried about her. No gossip. Now, remember, GCMers are allowed to get online and tell other GCMers how terrible their family and husbands are. That is not gossip. They are “helping” one another and “supporting” one another. But if their families say they are worried about them, well that is gossip. UGH!

None of us really knew what to do.

My parents response was:
There are always two sides to a story.
They felt neither side was 100% correct in their positions.
Their grandchildren were in a lose/lose situation.
The way she talks about their father in front of the kids would be detrimental to them.
They suggested she put her computer away because she spends way too much time on it.
Cancel cell phone because of the big importance in her life that it was.
Spend quality time with her children.
Violence on the childrens’ video games were negatively affecting them.

Oh, the horror, the toxicity!!!! Do you see why she is so scared of us? No, I don’t either.

So why did my parents say the above? Because they cared for all parties involved. They knew my brother-in-law was not perfect. They also knew their daughter wasn’t either. Every year when she would come home, it was the same thing. She would have the oldest watch the others. She spent a great deal of time on the computer. That last summer was no different except she spent even more time on the computer. If the experience was so bad, why wasn’t she spending more time with her children than usual to comfort them? But her time was spent online. She kept telling everybody that her main concern was for her children. We did not see that during the summer nor during the divorce. It was all about her.

So obviously we are toxic and unsafe because we care for all who are involved in this terrible situation. We are allies of abuse because we can recognize that both my sister and brother-in-law have treated each other poorly. We didn’t 100% support my sister because we pointed out concerns and we had the nerve to tell her to spend time with her children!